2012 Year in Review: Crowdfunding in the Mainstream, Good or Bad News for Designers?

It seems like every day the editors at Core77 receive at least a dozen pleas from designers who have elected to get on the hamster wheel of crowdfunding. In fact, it's become so ubiquitous, we've dedicated a whole category to kickstarting designs. Undoubtedly, 2012 is the year that crowdfunding went mainstream, but now that it's firmly established as a viable way to start a project or business, it's going to start maturing. Don Lehman, Core77 contributor and author of our series, The Crowdfunding Revolution, identifies a few areas of growth for 2013:

A deeper understanding by Backers of what Crowdfunding is really about (Crowdfunding is not Amazon. You're supporting a journey, not buying a product. Delays are part of the journey.)

A deeper understanding by Creators of what Crowdfunding is really about (It's not winning the lottery, it's winning the opportunity to not sleep for months on end.)

Better rules to protect both Project Creators and Backers: With Kickstarter's rendering ban and the launch of new product-specific crowdfunding sites like Christie Street and Ideacious in the mix, we look forward to see if a more defined playing field will yield better products.

Core77 editor hipstomp has a slightly more pessimistic view on what the Kickstarter rendering ban might mean for designers: "[The ban] really reinforces the fact that just as we think the general public is finally beginning to understand our profession, turns out they ain't."

But despite the general uncertainty for the future of crowdfunded products, here are some of our favorite crowdfunded projects from 2012:

If only all industrial designers paid as much attention to ergonomics as this engineer.Michigan-based Michael Chou is a dad who loves ice cream, and has scooped a lot of it out for his kids. Here's the thing: He likes the ice cream when it's frozen solid, not partially melted, and...

Weird Crap On Kickstarter can be a pretty depressing beat, but sometimes the odd and terrible offerings can give us opportunities to reflect, to learn, and to better ourselves. Today I present the case of Seatylock: yet another bike lock/bike seat hybrid. This thing addresses a few common complaints about...

The new Apple Watch may offer navigation via a paired iPhone's GPS system, but (Maps bugs notwithstanding) wayfinding used to be a skill, especially here in New York City. While the grid of streets and avenues bears a semblance of intuitive legibility, the sinuously criss-crossing subway lines has long been...

The phrase "First World problems" was trenchant the first time I heard it. Now five years later, with everyone braying it and hashtagging it as the laziest of punchlines, it irritates me. But I guess it won't go away, and that's partially because of objects like the Hapifork and the...